Tips and Advice for Opening or Investing in a Pub, Bar, Restaurant or Nightclub Business

The Concept and Location for your Pub or Bar

Any pub or bar needs to be clear about its concept, market, customers and unique offerings in order to have a well thought out business plan.

Are you looking to start a traditional pub, a modern bar or some sort of a mix between the two? Is it a family friendly pub or more of a nightclub with loud music? Will you offer food or just snacks, will there be any form of live entertainment or any special attractions?

A lot of these questions will help you define your concept before opening a pub.

Once you’ve decided on your concept, the next step is to identify a suitable location. The location is one of the most important factors in establishing a successful bar or pub. Take your time in assessing as many options as possible and do not rush into confirming any property. Remember, once you’ve chosen the location and invested money into renovating it, you’ll be stuck there, so think carefully.

If you’ve found something you like, write down a list of all the positive and negative things about the prospective property. Next, do a detailed examination of all the negative factors and where possible, identify all the costs involved in rectifying the problems.

Once you’ve got a monetary evaluation of the issues and still feel that the positives outweigh the negatives, note it as a shortlisted option.

If you do this for all the properties you’re considering for your new pub, and then compare each of the shortlisted choices against each other, you’ll get a lot of insight into all the relative benefits and setbacks.

Most of all, it will force you to really think deeper and understand more about what’s involved in your new business.